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[Paul F. Johnson]

Hi,

> > Quoting GregDeKoenigsberg from the Fedora Foundation: "Business
> > considerations that prevented certain Mono components from being
> > included in Fedora previously have now been resolved."
> 
> To me, this statement is not enough - At least lack of communication.

I will agree there. It would have been nice to have known what went on
behind closed doors - it smacks of the corporate world where things
"happen" without people knowing rather than the warm and welcoming OSS
route where everything is transparent.

> I don't think it should be forbidden (I actually have no opinion on mono
> nor C#) - All I am asking is:
> 
> * What on the legal situation has changed in such a way that we are now
> seeing mono in Core, despite RH has told us for a very long time that it
> would not be possible for legal reason? 
> 
> The only explanation, I have: Either something must have changed or
> somebody must have been lying to the community on the legal issues.

I have a feeling that it is either Novell have had some piece of paper
or other from the borg saying we won't sue, or that the borg's perverse
idea of OSS licences has been accepted or even that MS have submitted
SWF and a few other key bits to EMCA for approval which means that they
can be implemented by others without risk of litigation.

> * Is it safe to ship Mono based packages as part of FE, or are FE users,
> FE contributors, or FESCO at risk of being sued?

Given the insanity of the patent system in the US, just about everyone
is at risk of infringment by firing up Anjuta and doing anything simpler
than a "hello world" application! What is slightly more worrying is the
terms agreed by contributors for FE - will RH protect the likes of me
for packaging mono apps if all goes tits up?

> RH's argumentation so far had been: "No RH can't ship Mono, because RH
> is at risk of being sued for patent infringement". The SCO case and
> mp3/css ("The Graf", might ring a bell for you) have taught us, it is
> not necessarily, the enterprize who is at risk to be sued, it is the
> user.

SCO only went after users as they are softer targets. Big nasty company
goes after little user with bully boy extorsion techniques, little user
pays up. They went after the likes of RH, IBM, Novell and if hadn't been
for the borg and Sun giving them wodges of dosh, they would be nothing
more than something you'd wipe off your shoe.

CSS is, as someone else has said in reply to me, one of the crackpot
bits that the DCMA was actually bought in to protect (some observers
even believe it's one of the two reasons why it appeared!)

> For me personally, the crucial points are:
> 
> Without one of the responsible decision takers having elaborated the
> legal background of Mono, I don't feel in a position to "accept" mono
> packages and will find anybody doing so acting negligent.

It take a different stance on this to you. I don't believe they are
being negligent in the least as the position given by RH themselves both
implicit and explicitly is that all that is C# is good to go. If they
don't want to explain their actions, then that's up to them - as
contributors, we accept the rules they put down and if it all goes bad,
then RH take the fall.

TTFN

Paul
-- 
"Logic, my dear Zoe, is merely the ability to be wrong with authority" -
Dr Who